Kate C. Lemay, Ph.D., is the Director of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. USAHEC is the singular resource for understanding strategic landpower and current events through the study of the Army’s past.
Dr. Lemay is a Fulbright Scholar; a Presidential Counselor to the National WWII Museum; and an Advisor to the National Women’s Suffrage Monument Association.
Prior to joining the Army War College, Dr. Lemay served as a historian and curator at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. There, she was the founding coordinating curator for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative. In 2019, Lemay curated “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence” to usher in the centennial of the U.S. American women’s suffrage anniversary. Accompanying this exhibition, she published its eponymous catalogue with Princeton University Press in 2019, which was awarded the 2021 Smithsonian Secretary’s Prize for Excellence in Research as well as the 2020 Amelia Bloomer Book Award from the American Library Association.
In 2017, Lemay’s first book, Triumph of the Dead: American WWII Cemeteries, Monuments and Diplomacy in France,was awarded the Terra Foundation in American Art publication grant. In 2018, she served as guest editor for a special issue on transatlantic diplomacy and war cemeteries forThe International Journal of Military History and Historiography. Dr. Lemay has published essays on the intersections of art history and military history forthe University of North Texas Press, Oxford University Press, The Strategy Bridge, Zócalo Public Square,Reviews in American History, andthe Marine Corps University Press.In addition to her Fulbright, Dr. Lemay’s research has been supported by a Terra Foundation in American Art predoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, a postdoctoral fellowship in American Modernism at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at the Caen Mémorial Museum in France.
Dr. Lemay served as the lead historian for the transformation of the Portrait Gallery’s signature exhibition “America’s Presidents” (2017). Her other exhibitions include “Marlene Dietrich: Dressed for the Image” (2017) and, co-curated with Dr. Taína Caragol, the landmark exhibition “1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions” (2023). which was awarded by the South Eastern College for its curatorial excellence. In 2023, Drs. Caragol and Lemay coauthored 1898: Visual Culture and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific, published by Princeton University Press.
Dr. Lemay has held the positions of assistant professor of art history at Auburn University Montgomery and visiting assistant professor of the history of modern and contemporary art at Brigham Young University. She earned a dual PhD in American art history and American studies from Indiana University (Bloomington), where she completed an MA in art history. She holds a BA in French and art history from Syracuse University, from where she graduated with the Award of Excellence in French, magna cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa.